Shopping Centers Russia Июль 2019 | Page 83

“This being said, recent champions among goods and services have taken a back seat and are now being replaced by new formats and concepts.

You must look for such anchors which will generate the people turnover in the age of online shopping, the tenants whose goods are difficult or inconvenient to buy online. They are entertainment centres, restaurants, food courts including some exotic gastro concepts and goods which people would like to touch before the purchase, such as children’s clothes, arts and crafts etc.,” explains Boris Katz, HBD of Leonardo, hobby hypermarkets.

The size of an anchor does not mean anything nowadays. “Anchor tenants normally generate about 30% of the traffic for a shopping centre on average. Then again today the market is adapting to the customer, so an anchor tenant these days is any operator which plays a key role for the customers,” believes Patrick Sjoberg, Regional Director of SRV Russia.

Clusters of tenants often act as anchors, for example fashion chains, DIY stores and sports goods ideally mixed. When people realize that they can buy all the necessary things for the money they can afford at one place that is the place they will go to. “An anchor today is not one store but a combination of a few popular formats and their diversity.

This is the principle used for shopping streets and food-halls, as well as youth art spaces in former industrial zones with a superior selection,” marks Andrey Mukhin, Chief Vice President of Gals-Development.

Smaller anchors are normally monobrand stores, such as re:Store, Samsung, Huawei and others. They cannot boast a big floorspace yet they do generate the target traffic. “Despite their smaller size, they still attract customers. Mini-anchors can be presented by cosmetic shops, book supermarkets, and large chain pharmacies. They do bring more people in,” explains Patrick Sjoberg.

When small is not bad

New online market and social networks anchors are joining the retail. Having acquired a massive audience online, a lot of companies have already moved into brick and mortar. One of the brightest and most recent examples is Amazon 4-star, or Taobao as a cafe. Russian retail has welcomed Lamoda, 12Storeez, VIKI 18.11, Mixit and some others. At the same time, Inditex Group, LPP Group, Uniqlo are still key anchors and they are even getting bigger.

When mixed correctly, anchors and galleries make a symbiotic relation and produce a good financial result: there will be no people in the gallery without an anchor and without a gallery there will be no high financial flow. But all this is impossible without a thought through concept, location, traffic efficiency and the meeting of different formats”, comments Olga Valchuk, CEO of Regiondevelopment.

To sum up, a retail property these days is not about a few major anchors with a lot of floorspace but a whole pool of retailers, which is why the term ‘anchor’ is becoming really vague and relational. The anchor is not just a popular chain generating the traffic; it is in fact a project with a deep knowledge of its customer, a clear concept positioning and a unique offer for the location. The term can be applied to original small concepts, or theme zones, or clusters of similar tenants.

Text Georgy Beregovoy